


Second Chances

by astudyinfic



Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: AO3 FB Challenge, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death Fix, Fix-It, He dies but then he lives, M/M, not permanent death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-20 04:13:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15525801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astudyinfic/pseuds/astudyinfic
Summary: Jack thought they had more time.  He never wanted it to happen like this.Thankfully, they had a guardian angel in a blue box.





	Second Chances

**Author's Note:**

> This was for the AO3 FB Challenge where my prompt was "Canon divergence for your choice of pair in an old fandom." And what better pair than Janto?!?

With tears in his eyes, he followed as gentle hands wrapped around his bicep and guided him from the room.  He went on instinct, his mind focused solely on his lover who currently lay in a body bag with the other victims of the 456.  

“Jack, I know,” Gwen said but Jack hardly heard her.  “We have to keep fighting. Ianto wouldn’t want you to give up.”

Little did she know, Jack was far from giving up.  The 456 took the one man who meant more to him than any other.  No, Jack wasn’t giving up. He was getting revenge.

And then he was getting Ianto back.

After sacrificing so much, Jack thought he couldn’t hurt anymore.  He thought wrong. His own grandson lost to the 456, his daughter no longer speaking to him.  In the span of two days, he lost everything that mattered to him. The world was safe but at too high a cost.

“You still have me,” Gwen told him, shrinking back from Jack’s scorching gaze.  He couldn’t find the energy to pretend to care at that moment.

With a heavy sigh and eyes too old for his still youthful face, Jack said, “Go home to Rhys, Gwen, and be thankful he is still alive.  Some of us aren’t that lucky.” He pulled his coat over his shoulders and walked away from her with no intention of ever seeing Gwen again.

Earth didn’t need him anymore.  It broke his heart and his soul.  Jack intended to take one thing from this planet and then walk away.  Gwen called after him but Jack didn’t hear, his mind focused elsewhere.  

His badge got him where he needed to be, the warehouse where the victims of the 456 were being kept.  Long, angry strides carried him down the hall, a deep scowl and aura of rage causing everyone to keep their distance.  He was a man on a mission, fighting to meet a deadline he knew all too well.

Nothing could have prepared Jack for the sight that greeted him when he stepped inside at the warehouse.  Row after row of body bags laid on the floor, each one holding a victim. People whose lives were cut short, who had hopes and dreams, people who loved them and would miss them.  

One of them was his own beloved.

“Ianto Jones,” he growled to the UNIT soldier tasked with guarding the place.  Guarding the dead.

The man checked the manifest then nodded for Jack to follow him.  One bag among hundreds. Jack looked down at it, knowing it was different.  Knowing the man inside was different.

He glanced at the soldier.  “Leave me.” The man seemed to accept that as ‘Leave me to mourn.  Leave me to care for my fallen colleague.’ Jack didn’t correct him, simply waited for him to walk away before slowly unzipping the bag, bracing himself for what he would see.

Ianto looked peaceful and if not for the pallor of his skin and the unnatural stillness, Jacke might be able to convince himself Ianto was just sleeping like he often did in Jack’s bunk back at the hub.  

As much as Jack wanted to get him out of there, he simply didn’t have the time.  While each one was different, Jack had enough experience to be able to estimate. And time was running out.

A glance around the warehouse confirmed he was alone.  The place was as silent as the dead who occupied it. Jack wondered if he knew any of the others if those bags contained other people he’d met and interacted with.  One was his grandson and he felt a pang of guilt at not feeling as much for Steven’s death as he did for Ianto’s. But deep inside, he knew now was not the time to worry about that.  He could grieve and process later.

Now was the time for something else.

Sitting beside Ianto the way his lover had done for him so many times in the past, Jack waited.  Waited for that sharp intake of breath, eyes flying open, wild and confused.

The moment it happened, Jack whispered, “It’s okay, Ianto.”  Drawing the younger man closer to his chest, Jack held him as Ianto drew deep lungfuls of oxygen into his body for the first time in almost two days.  “The first time is the worst but I have you. You’re safe.”

Jack’s own breath rasped with every one drawn in by Ianto.  He remembered his first death, the terror of waking up after knowing you were dead, knowing there was nothing else.  But for him, there had been. Death after death after death, he woke up alone and afraid.

Until Ianto.

Ianto sat by his side every time he was able.  Held his hand, brushed the hair from his face. Jack still remembered that first one, holding Ianto afterward as the man sobbed in relief.  Ianto told him about Gwen keeping him away after that first death at Torchwood. They hadn’t told anyone of their relationship up until that point but afterward, there was no more hiding.  And there was no denying Ianto the next time Jack died. His place was at Jack’s side.

And now the tables were turned and Jack was the one holding Ianto.  When the Doctor returned and met Ianto, Jack was both terrified and delighted to see the two of them hit it off so well.  And when Ianto and Jack helped the Doctor on a perilous mission that almost ended in Ianto’s death, the Doctor offered them a gift.  While he couldn’t fix Jack’s condition, he could change Ianto.

It took three days of intense conversation before they made a decision.  Jack didn’t want that for Ianto. Immortality was painful, watching everyone age and die while you remained static, time moving around you.  But when he promised a heartbroken Ianto that he would keep him forever if it was up to him, Ianto immediately went to the Doctor to accept his offer.

Only after the fact did Jack find out that Ianto had gone ahead with it, had chosen to live on forever rather than let Jack face the loss of one more person in a long line of those he loved and lost.  “Ianto, you shouldn’t have. Your family...”

“Already don’t see me very often.  My niece and nephew are growing up barely even knowing they have an uncle let alone spending any time with me.  If I vanish one day, nothing changes for them except the lack of a Christmas card at the holidays. I knew this when I accepted the position at Torchwood London and nothing has changed since then.”  Most Torchwood employees know the risks, know what is being asked of them before they sign on. Cutting ties with their pre-Torchwood life is only one of them. “Besides, I already did it so there is nothing either of us can do about it anymore.”

Neither of them expected that decision to pay off so soon though.  Jack hoped it would be years before he lost Ianto for the first time.  Instead, only a few months passed before the 456 arrived. Before Ianto lost his life.

As he held the trembling man in his arms, Jack silently thanked the Doctor for the gift he bestowed on Ianto.  On both of them, really. Because right now, he would be preparing to bury Ianto rather than whisk him off to start the next chapter in their life together.  Neither expected (or wanted) the gift to become useful so soon but Jack was grateful it was there.

Once Ianto calmed enough to be able to stand and speak, Jack helped him from the body bag and gestured to the door.  “We need to get out of here before they come back. I prefer not to explain how you are alive, if at all possible.” Together, they hurried out of the room, pointedly ignoring all the bags that remained full and still all around them.  

They slipped out into the rapidly darkening night, hurrying through the open space between the warehouses to reach Jack’s car.  There was much still to discuss but escape and freedom were the first two priorities. Once they were on the road, they could talk about what to do next.  Jack had ideas but he wanted to make sure they were all okay with Ianto before putting any of them into action.

The car started up and soon they were pulling away, feeling like any other mission.  But it wasn't. It was the one that ended Torchwood Cardiff. At least as it had always stood.  Jack thought Gwen might keep it going but that was up to her, not him. “Jack,” Ianto said, staring straight ahead and reminding Jack far too much of what the man was like after the cannibals in the countryside.  “I died.”

“You did.  But you are still here.  And when I see the Doctor, I will give him the biggest hug possible because _you are still here_.”  That refrain echoed over and over again in Jack’s mind.  All the guilt and worry he felt of Ianto’s transition from mortal to immortal were gone now, knowing that Ianto continued to live after something that killed so many.

Ianto finally turned to look at him and when Jack caught his eyes, he was overwhelmed by all the emotion he saw swimming in them.  “I can’t go back home. I know the protocol. Rhiannon has already been told I’m dead. Gwen thinks I’m dead.” Though Gwen wasn’t as much of a problem.  After Jack, and Owen, and Suzie, people didn’t really stay dead for long at Torchwood. “I don’t want to go back to Torchwood. So, what do I do?”

“I had an idea about that,” Jack started and as they drove leaving everything Ianto knew behind, Jack outlined his plan.  It was a little crazy, a little dangerous, but when couldn’t those phrases be applied to their lives?

Ianto didn’t ask any questions, quietly content to go along with whatever Jack’s plan was.  If he had a concern, he would voice it when necessary. It was one of the things that attracted Jack to him in the first place.  Not many people put so much trust in him so fast, yet Ianto did. Sure, he questioned things but only if he had a good reason to.  Gwen, Owen, even Tosh sometimes seemed to enjoy talking back simply for the sake of making Jack’s life harder. Ianto, on the other hand, did everything he could to make everyone’s life easier, the situation with Lisa excluded.

When they arrived at their destination, Ianto raised a brow but said nothing else as they exited the car.  “I’ll let Gwen know where to come to get this,” Jack told him. “We don’t need it anymore.”

They had nothing but the clothes on their backs and the few possessions in the back of the truck.  Guessing at what Ianto was thinking, Jack shook his head. “We don’t need any of it. We’ll get anything we need later.”  

Dry grass crunched under their feet as they left the pavement and made their way up a hill.  Nothing in the area made Ianto thing there was a safe house or getaway close but if all those years at Torchwood taught him anything it was that things were not always what they seemed.  

Like he and Jack.  They certainly weren’t the mortal humans everyone would see when they looked at them.  (A strange thought to realize he wasn’t mortal anymore. It would probably take a few more deaths before Ianto became comfortable with that idea.)

Just before cresting the hill, a familiar sound filled the air and the TARDIS appeared right in front of them.  “I hear you boys are in need of a lift,” an unfamiliar face with a familiar personality said.

“Thanks, Doc,” Jack said with a laugh, stepping onto the TARDIS with Ianto close behind.

It wasn’t the first time Ianto had been on the ship but each time he stepped through those doors, it was disorienting for a moment to see just how much bigger it was on the inside.  He walked slowly around the console, taking everything in while Jack and the Doctor spoke in urgent tones. Ianto heard his own story being told but after being dead for two days, he wasn’t ready to relive it just yet.  

Ianto came back to himself when Jack stepped beside him, putting his hand on Ianto’s elbow.  “Let me show you the way to our room. The Doctor offered me a ride whenever I needed to get off Earth.  Now seems like a good time for that, don’t you agree.”

He did and Ianto nodded, lacing his fingers with Jack’s as his lover led them to the bedroom Jack once had on the TARDIS.  Whatever Ianto was expecting, it wasn’t this. The bunk in the Hub was utilitarian at its finest and other than a few small pictures and his clothes, there was nothing about it that gave any clue to who lived there.  

This room?  This room was all Jack.  The deep blue bedding, the interesting gadgets in various states of repair.  A large mirror and a larger closet. “The TARDIS determines what we need and fixes the rooms to match.  I suspect now that you’re here it will make a few more changes until it represents us both.”

The plush carpet silenced his steps as Ianto walked around the room, taking it all in.  This would be his home for the next few days or weeks or months. He didn’t know where they were going and didn’t much care.  He was far too tired for that right now. Who knew death could be so exhausting?

“Sleep, Ianto.  I’ll go help the Doctor.  When you’re ready, then we can talk.”  Jack kissed his forehead and Ianto nodded, he slipped from the room, back to the console where the Doctor was waiting.  

Ianto changed out of the suit he was wearing when he died and into some pyjamas, he found in a dresser drawer.  The soft bed and warm linens enveloped him the moment he laid down and he was out, sleeping for hours as his body recovered from the biggest trauma he’d ever experienced.  

When he met Jack and the Doctor later, feeling much more like himself, he greeted Jack with a kiss, much like the one they shared after Ianto’s first experience with Jack’s deaths.  One that spoke of hope and future and promise.

“So, Ianto Jones.  All of space and time at your fingertips.  Where would you like to go?” the Doctor asked.  

Glancing at Jack, Ianto realized it didn’t really matter to him.  As long as they were together, they could go anywhere. “Surprise me,” he said, never taking his eyes of Jack.

The Doctor laughed, the TARDIS shuddered, and Ianto thought that maybe things were going to turn out alright after all.


End file.
